Fourth Quarter Was When Pacers Failed to Keep Pace

The Indiana Pacers will have a long off-season to think about what they let slip away in one quarter.

Instead of playing in a NBA finals Game 7 where anything could have happened, the Pacers will remember how they ended their season by not keeping up with the Lakers in the fourth quarter of Game 6.

“We have nothing to be ashamed of, we lost to an excellent basketball team,” point guard Mark Jackson said.

“They made shots [in the fourth quarter], but we still felt we were in position to win with five or six minutes to go. But we gave up a couple of [three-point play opportunities] and we gave up a couple of rebounds off of missed shots and that hurt us once again.”

For 36 minutes, the Pacers had an answer for everything the Lakers did. When Shaquille O’Neal got off to a strong offensive start, Indiana made sure no other Laker hurt them too badly.

Every time the Lakers made a run, Indiana responded with one of its own and kept its lead. And, when any Laker other than O’Neal made a play, the Pacers made sure that player didn’t do it again.

But then the fourth quarter began.

“We just didn’t get any [defensive] stops when we needed them,” Pacer Coach Larry Bird said. “[The Lakers] showed a lot of heart again tonight, which they’ve done all season long. I tip my hat off to them. We had our ups and downs. We had a great opportunity here to win a championship.”

Or at least stretch the series to seven games.

After leading, 84-79, after three quarters, the Pacers were hit by 15-4 run by the Lakers to open the final period. But as they did all game, the Pacers kept fighting and even though they trailed, 101-94, with 6:24 remaining, they tied the score at 103-103 at the 5:04 mark.

That’s when the Lakers pulled ahead again. With 3:02 left, Indiana found itself down, 110-103, and Bird was forced to go to the “Hack-a-Shaq.” Over the next 21 seconds, O’Neal was fouled twice and made only one of four free throws, which helped the Pacers cut the Laker lead to 110-109 with 1:32 left.

Did Indiana wait too long to start fouling O’Neal? Mark Jackson doesn’t think so. “I think we did it right because of the way the game was going,” he said.

Once O’Neal began clanking free throws, Laker Coach Phil Jackson took him out of the game at the 2:27 mark and kept him out until there were less than two minutes left because he knew then that the Pacers could no longer deliberately foul O’Neal without giving the Lakers a free throw and the ball back.

Without this option, the Pacers were forced to play the Lakers straight up on defense. Maybe the turning point Indiana came when Dale Davis blocked a weak shot by Glen Rice, but in a battle for the loose ball, Austin Croshere was called for a foul by official Joe Crawford.

“I know these guys are trying their best [but] they miss calls,” Bird said about the officials. “It’s just part of the game.”

Rice ended up making both free throws to stretch the Laker lead to 112-109 with 1:16 left. It turned out to be the closest Indiana would get the rest of the game.

For Reggie Miller, it was a disappointing way to end the season.

“I think the referees ought to turn their head on something like that, especially with both teams battling like that,” Miller said about Croshere’s foul on Rice.

“But you have to give L.A. credit. Every time we made a run, they found a way to get back into the ballgame . . . they seemed to have an answer every time.”

With Bird calling it quits and the Pacers having to deal with six free agents, it will be an interesting summer for the Pacers.

Said Croshere: “The way I feel right now, I want to go out and play another game with the same people and everything. It’s very disappointing that in all likelihood that won’t be the case.”